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UNIT 2 VCE HISTORY
ASSESSMENT TASK
We will start with the "back into it quiz".
It's a bit of an experiment, you are the first class I am doing this with.
Click here: http://m.socrative.com/student/#joinRoom
The room number is 117763.
Follow the instructions on the screen and we'll see how it goes!
2 movies: The Fog of War + Thirteen Days Assessment Task (SAC)
You will be given three essay statements. You are to choose and write on ONE essay, using the film ’Thirteen Days’, the documentary ‘The Fog of War’, and all information pertaining to the early cold war (text book, notes, PPTs).
The three topics are:
Every statement will contain this sentence:
"Discuss this statement with reference to the film ’Thirteen Days’ and the documentary ‘The Fog of War’."
Note: It should not become a movie review. Use your own knowledge of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but make one or two passing references to what you've seen in the movies.
Your essay will be approximately 600-800 words in length.
Focus on a strong structure. (introduction, paragraphs and conclusion).
Assessment criteria:
Preparation:
Who was to blame for the "outbreak" of the Cold War?
Download a sample essay plan here
Now Create your own essay template here.
Useful things:
History Humour: MSN messages between Khrushchev and Kennedy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUzOktgBBrg
The Fog of War
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003), directed by Errol Morris, is an American documentary film about the life and times of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. The original score is by Philip Glass.
The title is a reference to the military phrase fog of war, a concept of battlefield uncertainty during the fighting. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Using archival footage, United States Cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the eighty-five-year-old Robert McNamara, The Fog of War depicts his life, from his birth during the First World War remembering the time American troops returned from Europe, to working as a WWII Whiz Kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to his being employed as Secretary of Defense and the Cuban Missile Crisis, to managing the American Vietnam War, as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson — emphasizing the war's brutality under their regimes, and how he was hired as secretary of defense, despite limited military experience.
Director Errol Morris interviewed McNamara for some twenty hours; the two-hour documentary comprises eleven lessons from the book ‘In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam’ (1995). McNamara posits, discourses upon, and propounds the lessons in the interview that is The Fog of War.
Moreover, at an U.C. Berkeley event, McNamara disagreed with Morris's interpretations in The Fog of War, yet, on completion, McNamara supplemented the original, eleven lessons with an additional, ten lessons; they are in The Fog of War DVD.
When asked to apply the eleven lessons from In Retrospect to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, McNamara refused, arguing that ex-secretaries of defense must not comment upon the incumbent defense secretary's policies. He suggested other people could apply the eleven lessons to the war in Iraq, but that he would not, noting that the lessons are generally about war, not a specific war.
R.S. McNamara's eleven lessons of war:
1. Empathize with your enemy
2. Rationality will not save us
3. There's something beyond one's self
4. Maximize efficiency
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war
6. Get the data
7. Belief and seeing are often both wrong
8. Be prepared to re-examine your reasoning
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil
10. Never say never
11. You can't change human nature
Due to time constraints, we will watch several excerpts of 'The Fog of War'
Excerpt 1 + 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW1vIFKI6tE (First 20 minutes, covers the Cuban Missile Crisis)